Day 59 - May Analysis and June Plans

What I learned this month:
This month, I got a lot of stuff done. I only focused on one thing this month and that is my English Project for "The Cellist of Sarajevo." I got to do anything I wanted for this project but I chose to mix and match with my courses and decided to get double credit. I chose to combine it with my Info-tech class because I wanted to learn new things in Sony Vegas because that's what my Independent Studies course is on.

I learned a lot this month, especially about keyframes! I animated so much this month that it's become second nature to me to go to the "Event Pan/Crop" section and start animating away. This is something that will definitely come in handy when I make Youtube videos. I never used this feature because I was too lazy to learn it while making videos so I decided to do it for the Cellist assignment and oh boy did I learn a lot.

I learned how to keyframing works and what you need to do to make it move. I learned that if you want something to move later on in its lifetime, you need to make it stand still first and then move on to it later. I also learned how to resize, how to inverse and all that fun stuff. Learning about maintaining aspect ratio really helped as well. It taught things about pictures and how they need to be checked off in the settings to fit the video.

The most important thing I learned this month, in my opinion, was a life lesson about managing time. I was very condensed for time in that I had AP calculus earlier this month and I had to manage my time for all my classes. I believe that I did a decent job in managing time for this class even though I really couldn't get to it in the first half of the month due to wanting a break from all the school. However, I counted out the days and I knew that I needed to hurry it up so I definitely managed my time well in that aspect. You can look at my blog and I got the exact number of days I needed which is 19.

I do believe that I learned a lot this month not just for IT but also learning life lessons. This course is also tough when trying to go for a perfect mark and it's even harder when you're not doing it in a class but doing it outside of one. I have to do it alone and I believe this has taught me how to manage my time and not to procrastinate.I've worked very hard on these posts and I hope it shows.
What I plan to learn next month:
Next month I plan to be on top of things. I have graduation ceremonies, prom, etc. in the next few days so I plan to not do anything for the next days but I will definitely make up for it on the weekend. This next month, I plan to finish up "The Cellist of Sarajevo" assignment in probably 4-5 posts. Then, I want to make a montage and have that be my final project for this class. I haven't waited all this time for nothing and I believe having two final projects is a good thing on this blog. I plan to learn how to make a montage in general. I am not going for a specific tutorial because I do not have a whole lot of time but I plan to make it good and interesting. This is going to be  my first montage that I am creating so hopefully in the future, I will have a lot more experience with it. I want this to be good and I will most likely upload it to my youtube channel because that's what this blog started out as and that's how it's going to end. This may be my last monthly post but I'm not 100% sure it is. I will definitely end this blog summarizing everything I've done on this blog. It's going to be a fun ride. See ya soon. :D
- Jimmy

Day 58 - Sony Vegas - English Project (26) - Dragan's Motivation

What I did:
Today, I finished Dragan's next chapter which also involved a car. This time it pauses and picks up Emina and goes on forward. I made Dragan move back and forward to show that he's thinking. This is a major chapter for Dragan in that he learns a lot about himself and what he wants to do next. This chapter leads him to make the decision that he needs to pull the man in the hat off the streets in the few chapters. It shows how much this war is affecting him and that's the reason I wanted to do this.

What I learned:
Today, I didn't learn much but it's coming toward the end of the month and I've already done this a thousand times so I hope this won't make me lose marks and I know it probably won't. What I did learn was that the maintaining aspect ratio also affects the tops and bottoms of the image. It happened with the car but when I put it in the composition and tried to move it down, it started to disappear because I didn't check "maintain aspect ratio." That's what I learned today.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to make the May analysis post. I plan to talk about what I've learned and what I plan to learn in the future. That is my goal for tomorrow's class. I will go into detail about what my plans are.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 57 - Sony Vegas - English Project (25) - Kenan's 3 types of people of the round table

What I did:
Today, I made the last biggest chapter in the book or at least what I would say is the biggest chapter. I created Kenan at a broken building trying to get water and I also had a few people there that died from the explosion. I also added something new to this and that was a car. I had the car drive into the screen, have a guy get out, then get in and leave again. I also had made the screen shake when the explosions were happening to show the effect of them.

What I learned:
Today, I learned about the tinting and adding it to a flash. After you go to flash transition second, click yellow flash and you have the ability to change the flash to a different colour through the tint option. You can make it black for a fade effect or blue for an airplane going into the sky effect but I stuck with yellow because that's the colour of the explosion. I also learned that you have to keep in the margins of the "Event Pan/Crop" section if you are making something go up and down because if your thing isn't in the margins, then it will show black instead.

What I plan to learn in the future:
Tomorrow, I plan to do the next chapter in the book. We are finally done chapter two of the book and we can move onto the rest of it. I plan to do most of Chapter 3 over the weekend and not really document all of it since it's not as important as the first 2 chapters. I will highlight the rest of it though. Tomorrow, I plan to do the next chapter and hopefully learn one last thing which I do not know about before the monthly post I make. 

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Day 56 - Sony Vegas - English Project (24) - Arrow's Job is done

What I did:
So, I actually didn't realize that Arrow's big chapter is right before  Kenan's so right that's what I created today instead of doing Kenan's. He will be next day. Today, I created the epic scene of the Arrow taking down the enemy sniper. This involved me switching backdrops 3 different times. It starts with the Cellist. Then goes to Nermin. Then finally back to the Cellist. This was just time-consuming but it's one of the 3 biggest chapters in the book so it's expected. I also created another death so that was fun. 

What I learned:
Today, I learned something that I've been really curious about for a long time. I've always wondered how many YouTubers add the zoom in effect for one second and immediately zoom out for the rest of the video. It's used for comedic effect and I've always wondered how to do it. Today, I learned that they use keyframes. Basically what you do is split the clip where you want it zoomed in and then split it again where you want it to go back to normal. Then, you take the split part and you go to the keyframe section and zoom it into where you want it zoomed. Then you have your zoom in effect!

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow is the day I plan to do Kenan's thing. I know I said this yesterday but tomorrow is actually the day where I do Kenan's story. It will involve a new explosion that I plan to learn so that's my goal for tomorrow. I will also learn how to add sound effects and etc. I want this to be done perfectly. This is the last biggest chapter of the story and after this, everything should be shorter. I should be cruising in the next few days. 

Time: 1 1/4 hours

Day 55 - Sony Vegas - English Project (23) - Rip In Peace, Cat in the HAT

What I did:
So, today, I made Dragan's most important chapter and this chapter involves death and people getting shot. I made a bunch of people run across the screen and some of them got shot so they would get turned to one side. I did not add the hat falling off the guy yet because I haven't created the sprite with the guy without the hat. yet but I will do that on my own time because it truly isn't anything urgent right now. I also viewed my rendering of the 8-minute video yesterday. I did this because I wanted to test out if it rendered properly and behold, it does. :D There have been times where it hasn't rendered and hopefully everything goes well. I would like to finish this project a few days before the due date because I want to see how the whole product looks.

What I learned:
Today, I learned that if you're in the "Event Pan/Crop" section, the timing at the markers does mean anything and that the program can be giving you a wrong time. What I'm saying is that, when you enter the keyframe section, it has time milestones in the timeline but those milestones don't represent that time at all. I learned that if you want the exact time, look in the bottom right corner of that tab and precisely put your thing in that place.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to create Kenan's most major chapter. Today, I finished Dragan's most major chapter and tomorrow is Kenan's. It involves explosions and cars so that should something new that I work on. I will definitely learn something about explosions tomorrow. Whether that involves making an explosion tomorrow or just making a different kind of flash but that is my goal for tomorrow's class.

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Day 54 - Sony Vegas - English Project (22) - Kenan is still on his stroll + Render Test

What I did:
Today, I made Kenan's next chapter which wasn't very action packed. The main thing that happened was him crossing the bridge. There wasn't much that I had to do that I haven't done before other than adding in some characters and moving them. From here on out, we are more than 50% done the story. I also learned some keyframe things today which can help a lot in the future. I am also becoming very comfortable with keyframes and animating. Practice makes perfect.

What I learned:
Today, I learned something new about keyframing. This could've been learned many classes ago but I wasn't that familiar with keyframing so I didn't really know much. Basically, if you put a keyframe somewhere, and you go to the composition to see what the effect is, if you're not on the exact spot the keyframe is, it will not show you the final position of the object. This has messed me up multiple times because I always go to the middle rather than the end so when I apply the keyframe, the character might be off the screen and that's how I want it. That's what I learned today.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to learn about the timing thing in the keyframe section. It's basically how the timing works in that section. I can explain more tomorrow. I plan to create the biggest chapter of Dragan tomorrow. It's the part where Emina gets shot and it basically shapes the rest of Dragan's story arc. That is my goal for tomorrow. I will also explain the results of the render test. 

Time: 1 Hour

Day 53 - Sony Vegas - English Project (21) - Arrow's Resolve

What I did:

Today, I finished another one of the longest chapters in the book which is Arrow's chapter in which she must protect the Cellist. I did a lot of stuff for this chapter. I added an extra gun, inverted it and made it shoot at arrow while the cellist is performing. I also gave the cello of the Cellist a moving up and down effect to make it show that he's playing. After Arrow gets shot, I made her turn to her side because she noticed that she was going to get shot at and immediately ducked. Then, I ended the chapter. It may not seem like a lot but a lot of effort went into this one especially. 

What I learned:

Today, I learned about inverting an image.What I'm talking about is making the object face the other way. For example, The gun that arrow uses is facing the to right but I can now make it face to the left by inverting it. This is pretty easy to do in photoshop and it's also pretty easy to do in Sony Vegas. To do this in Sony Vegas, you have to go to the "Event Pan/Crop" section and put completely go to the arrow's and click on one side, and bring it in towards the middle and out again to make it face the other way. It's really quite simple!

What I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I plan to continue to with this cellist stuff and hopefully finish Kenan's next chapter. It is a pretty short chapter and doesn't have much in it. There isn't anything new to learn tomorrow but like I said, I always find something so hopefully, we will. Right now, I am about under 50% done with the book so we should be wrapping things up here in the next few chapters. Then, I plan to refine the whole project. 

Time: 1 3/4 hours

Day 52 - Sony Vegas - English Project (20) - Dragan-Tails reunites with Emina

What I did:
Today, I finished Dragan's chapter. It introduced a new character, Emina, who is actually very crucial to Dragan's story. I used the same backdrop because Dragan's whole story takes place at that intersection. I introduced Emina by having her approach Dragan. I also made Dragan move fast when he was supposed to be running toward the other side of the intersection and also when he gets shot at. There wasn't much else I did today because this chapter involved a lot of talking rather than action.

What I learned:
Today, I learned about maintaining aspect ratio and how you have to do this every single time you put an image into the composition. If you do not do this, sony vegas will not allow you to move the objects to the sides to be visible but after you uncheck the maintain aspect ratio, you can freely put the character wherever you want. I already knew about this but you have to do it for every single image. I also learned that you don't do this for videos because the videos will already lock into place. I'm not sure why this is but I think it's because Sony Vegas is video editing software so the pictures must be made compatible while the videos already are. 
What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to do Arrow's next chapter which may actually be her biggest one. It involves her setting up to kill the enemy sniper but actually, it gets turned on her and there's a pretty intense scene that occurs. Tomorrow, I plan to finish Arrow's next chapter. Tomorrow, I plan to learn about inversing. Basically, what I mean is that I want to turn a picture into its reflection. I'll explain more tomorrow.

Time: 45 minutes

Day 51 - Sony Vegas - English Project (19) - Nermin is one creepy guy

What I did:
Today,  I did the Arrow's next chapter which involved her going to her commander and talking to him (Btw he is really creepy). So, today I decided to finish that chapter. It involves also switching scenes to the cellist but it was fine because I already used the cellist before and he wasn't really that hard to incorporate into the animation. I also gave the Cellist a Cello this time around because this is the first point where we see him playing his cello. I used the same background where the cellist saw the people killed because that's where he plays his cello. 

What I learned:
Today, I learned about the arrow thingy in the "Event Pan/Crop" section. It's to the left side and it gives you options when you click it. You have the options to move it freely, side to side or up and down. These options can help you make sure that you stay on track and you don't end up moving the character around too much. I also learned about the keyframe second layer. If you look at my keyframe pictures, you can see that I have placed down keyframes into a lower layer as well. I learned that they do not do very much. I accidentally put a keyframe down into a lower layer and it didn't affect the composition at all even though it should have because a character was moving during that time. That is what I learned today.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to do Dragan's next chapter which involves a new character who is pretty major to his story arc. There's nothing major that happens in the next chapter other than Dragan almost getting shot so I do not know what I will plan to learn tomorrow. I am about more than 25% done this project in Sony Vegas and I am making very good timing. I normally learn something new every day so it will come to me what I learn tomorrow

Time: 1 hour

Day 50 - Sony Vegas - English Project (18) - Kenan's Stroll

What I did:
Today, I finished the next part of "The Cellist of Sarajevo." This chapter is definitely one of the longer chapters but it doesn't have a whole lot of character interactions or dialogue in it so it made it easier because I just have to briefly explain some of the thoughts he's having and the interactions will basically be easy as well because they're nothing too complex. In this section, I had to change backdrops because Kenan walks a lot so I changed from a destroyed street to a bridge area. The bridge area isn't supposed to represent the bridge but is supposed to represent the area where Kenan is at. I also gave Ismet a beard because he has one in the book.

What I learned:
Today, I learned that you if you want a character to start at the beginning again while animating, you should add the same sprite to the composition rather than trying to animate it back to the beginning because it will not end well.What I mean is that if you start a character from one side and make him go to the opposite and when you're done with that, you want it to go back to the beginning. It's better if you just add another sprite and animate that one rather than trying to use the same one because it will mess you up in that the sprite will go back across the screen and start from the beginning. Maybe there is a way for you to use the same sprite to animate it from the beginning again but it just seems easier to add another one in.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to continue with the story. I am making very good time and since I still have  9 posts to do this month, that means I will get through 8 more arcs for the characters this week which should put in well into chapter 3 or maybe even finished it. My goal for tomorrow is to complete Arrow's arc. It involves a small room and it's a pretty short chapter so it shouldn't be too hard. I don't have much to learn tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll find something because I always seem to do. :) Today, I learned something which I was not going for but it happened so that's my goal for tomorrow.


Time: 1 1/2 Hours

Day 49 - Sony Vegas - English Project (17) - Kenan's Expedition start and Dragan's totally not stationary for the whole book

What I did:
Today, I finished Kenan's chapter by making Mrs. Ritovski and also putting the milk cartons on Kenan. I know it sounds stupid but in the book, Kenan must go and get water for his family and he ties 6 milk cartons to himself so he can carry them. I also used a lot of keyframes for kenan to signify his knocking. I made a jumping up and down gesture to show his movement like how someone would do to a cartoon to show them doing something. This caused me to make a lot of keyframes. I also started and finished Dragan's first chapter as well. There wasn't much to it other than two people running across the street but other than that, there wasn't much to it.

What I learned:
Today, I learned how to make something shake and no, it doesn't use what I mentioned yesterday. The shake from yesterday did not work out in that no matter what you choose as a layer, the shake will affect the whole thing rather than just the object you have selected in a layer. So, I went full on manual and used keyframes to do it. Every few milliseconds, I put down a keyframe and moved the character up or down depending on how I wanted it to look. That's what I learned today and I'm not sure if I'll do this for every shake or if I'll only do it this one time. It does take time and I'm kind of running out of that.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to start chapter 2 of the book. There are 4 chapters but the chapters do get longer from here on out. I plan to do a chapter a day for each of the characters and hopefully I can finish chapters 2/3 by the end of next week and chapter is pretty short so it should be quite straight forward. Tomorrow, I will be learning how to do more things in Sony Vegas for this project. Hopefully, I learn a lot more than expected but that's my goal for tomorrow. I do not have a definite thing that I want to focus on but hopefully I figure it out.

Time; 1 1/2 hours

Day 48 - Sony Vegas - English Project (16) - Kenan's Startup

What I did:
Today, I started Kenan's story. Unfortunately, I did not get to finish it due to having two tests tomorrow but I wanted to get something out today. today, I started some of the parts of Kenan's story. I had to use a lot of keyframes for Kenan's movement because in this chapter there is a lot of stuff which does not have to be shown but can be shown through sounds which I will add this weekend. I also added the part where Kenan's wife comes in and talks to him but I have not added any commentary yet because I want to get the animation out of the way first. I want to get the hard stuff out of the way so I can cruise after that by doing the commentary. I also couldn't find a house backdrop so I decided to use a destroyed neighborhood one because that gives a feel of being at home and I don't 100% need it to be the exact location. 

What I learned:
Today, I did not have time to learn much stuff but I did get started on beginning to learn something for tomorrow's class. I learned where to go to get a shaky effect. A lot of the tutorials I've watched say you have to download a plug-in but I've learned that you really don't and that's what I'm beginning to learn I hope this doesn't deduct marks from mark but I plan to learn all of it tomorrow. I learned today that you have to go the "Video FX" panel and go to "Sony Film Effects" and then you go to the panel with the effects. I also learned that you need to add a lot of keyframes if you want to move someone and have them stay there and then move them again. You have to add still keyframes before you make something move or else the for the entirety of the object's runtime, it will be moving to its destination.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
My goal for tomorrow's class is to finish Kenan's chapter and to finish Dragan's chapter as well. Dragan's chapter is pretty short just like Kenan's so it should be pretty smooth. I also plan to finish learning how to make the screen shake, I'm going to use this on characters or the background. The characters will shake when they are "speaking" and the background will shake when there's an explosion or something. That is my goal for tomorrow.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 47 - Sony Vegas - English Project (15) - Arrow's escape

What I did:
Today, I finished Arrow's first chapter. My goal for every single post starting now is to get through at least one character's chapter every post. I created the falling of the soldier that gets shot by Arrow and I also made the flash to show the shells and the shot that gets fired at arrow when she tries to escape the building. I would still like to add a shake effect to this arc because of the mortars striking but I have not found a plug-in yet.

What I learned:
Today, I learned more about the animation tool. In the composition today, when Arrow was supposed to be coming out of the building. She went slow when going down but sped up when running. I learned how to do this by using keyframes. Since the amount of time for her to be going down takes longer, I gave her more time to do it but when she's running, it goes really fast. I have become a lot better at doing these keyframe things because I have used it so much in the past few days and I've learned a lot about it.


What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to create Kenan's arc. The first chapter is relatively simple for Kenan so it should be pretty easy. Tomorrow, I also plan to learn how to install a plug-in into Sony Vegas so I can give my characters a shaky look when they're scared or are talking. That is my goal for tomorrow's class.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 46 - Sony Vegas - English Project (14) - The Cellist's Plan and Arrow's Fury

What I did:
Today, I made a lot of progress towards my English Cellist of Sarajevo Project. I finished up most of the Cellist's arc and have now moved onto Arrow's. I did not fully finish the cellist's arc because I need to add one more thing which I do not have yet but that will be discussed later. Today, I created soldier sprites that I could use to have stock characters. These soldier characters were used for Arrow's story because they are getting shot at by Arrow. I positioned Arrow at the top because it shows that she has higher ground like she did in the book and I put the soldiers on the ground where they were. I also gave her a rifle and angled it so it looks like she is aiming at the guys on the ground. I also gave the Cellist is goodbye by having him walk off screen.

What I learned:

Today, the main thing I learned was how to create a gunshot effect. The way I learned how to do it was by downloading some stock "footage" effects of gunshot effects and putting them in the composition in a layer above your weapon. Then you have to go and click on the compositing button in the layer the gunshot is in and change it to "screen" which allows only the gunshot part to be shown because the black parts get screened. Then I angled the shot so it looks like it is coming out the rifle. 

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to finish Arrow's first chapter and begin Kenan's Chapter. Kenan does not have a lot of things in his story so I might just finish that tomorrow as well. I do not know what I plan to learn tomorrow but I guess we'll find out. Some of the things I learn when I make posts are things that come when I am doing the thing and not actually going to learn anything. Like if a glitch happens, I know what occurred to make that glitch and I will prevent it in the future.

Time: 1 1/2 hours